Preserving, enjoying, and riding three speed hub-geared bicycles.

Three Speed Spotted: Dunelt at Belmont Branch Library

If you are a regular reader here (or at Urban Adventure League), you probably know that my usual library branch is the Belmont Library at SE Cesar Chavez and Taylor. It’s been my default library for a number of years, as it’s centrally located in SE and is mere blocks away from work. I go here quite often, at least once a week if not more. And the Belmont Library is a good “bike watching” location, as it’s a library on a main bike route. I’ve spotted a couple other good examples of three speeds here in the past, like the 650B conversion Robin Hood and the infamous Ska Huffy. So I never know what interesting bike I’ll find here. Even on a crappy, rainy day like Friday, which is when I spotted this beaut:

A Dunelt!

I’ve spotted Dunelts in the wild before, like in Minneapolis. Dunelt was once an independent marquee that got subsumed by the Raleigh beast, which relegated it to second tier status. Dunelts are not as common as Raleighs, but not super rare either. (They are no Claude Butlers or Hetchins, no.)

This Dunelt was your standard black Sports-esque model of undetermined age. Overall it was in good shape, with one major caveat: the leather saddle.

Ouch.

Anyways, let’s move on to the good and interesting. The trigger shifter is in good shape.

The lamp bracket intact.

Love the Dunelt headbadge.

Lettering still nice and legible.

The rear hub was swaddled with a lovely leather strap to keep it clean. Because of this, I couldn’t see what type of hub it was (or what year it was made), but I’m going to take a wild guess and say it’s an AW.

Overall, good (beside the saddle.) A couple of modernizations noticeable, like newer front brake and plastic fenders. Points off for the crappy cable lock.

And of course I couldn’t resist, so I made sure to promote the upcoming Three Speed Ride.

Yep, I’m quite proud of myself to have the foresight to laminate a couple of the flyers. 😉